June 19, 2013 9:00pm EDTJune 19, 2013 12:13pm EDTThe Padres, A's and Pirates are among the lowest payroll teams in baseball, but they are winning while some of the game's big spenders flounder. Anthony Witrado takes a look at how small-market teams are succeeding.

The big splashes draw all the attention. The flashy waves of the checkbooks catch all the eyes. The rosters full of veteran All-Stars still get the headlines.

Meanwhile, payrolls totaling no more than $70 million and littered with names known only in poor households are viewed as laughing stocks. However, recent history tells us frugal paystubs, if signed by the wisest of the wise, are no reason for a Major League Baseball team to be terrible.

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Two of the three hottest teams in baseball – the San Diego Padres and Kansas City Royals – are among those seeking welfare from richer MLB clubs. Another, the Oakland A’s, are in first place in their division with the fourth-lowest payroll in the game.

The Pittsburgh Pirates, owners of the 20th-highest payroll, were 13 games above .500 and held a wild-card spot through Tuesday's action. The Tampa Bay Rays were above .500 and within striking distance in the heavy-spending American League East while the Baltimore Orioles, with the 18th-highest payroll, were in second place in the same division.

Baseball does not abide by the survival-of-the-richest rule. The game has too many smart people working for the peasants.

“It’s not just being smart, though,” A’s general manager Billy Beane said. “You have to be creative and can’t shy away from being bold … but in a smart way.”

That might as well be the Oakland mantra as the team has long been the model for sustained success with basement-level funds. Maybe the A's haven’t been to a World Series since 1990, but five AL West titles and a wild-card berth since 2000 are all the end result of the creativity and boldness under Beane’s watch.

And just like 2012 — when the A’s were almost universally picked to finish last after trading away some of their best young talent but ended up winning the division —this year’s group is in position to do it again despite having a target on its Goodwill-clothed back. Having a payroll less than $64 million is not an excuse for cellar dwelling in the East Bay.

That means finding new market inefficiencies. Not an easy feat considering that since the unearthing of the “Moneyball” concepts – the book, not the movie – every team now implements aspects of advanced stats and sabermetrics to build their clubs. All of them now valuing on-base percentage and strikeout-to-walk ratios, all race to discovers some new overlooked piece of knowledge to gain an advantage the way the A’s have since the mid-1990s.

The new inefficiency might be in how the A’s have again become a contender, remaking their team on the fly.

“You can’t help but admire what Billy has done there just because of the way he’s done it,” New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told Sporting News at last winter’s GM meetings in Palm Springs, Calif. “No matter how much money you have, you have to be smart. But what money does is helps you in mistakes. Billy can’t make the same mistakes richer clubs can make.”

The A’s finished 14 games under .500 in 2011 but had what seemed like young, promising pieces in place for the future. Those pieces included pitchers Gio Gonzalez, who made the All-Star team that season; Trevor Cahill, who was an All-Star the year before and ninth in Cy Young voting; and closer Andrew Bailey, who was an All-Star in 2009 and 2010.

The A’s traded all of them two offseasons ago. Beane and his savvy group of stat gurus and scouts moved those three standouts for Tommy Milone, Jarrod Parker, Josh Reddick and Ryan Cook (among other minor leaguers). The trades had expert analysts questioning the team’s motives and picking it to lose at least 90 games. Instead, every one of those players had a major role in the A’s winning the division and pushing the eventual AL champion Detroit Tigers to five games in the AL Division Series.

BUILDING THE BULLPEN

One of the more overlooked reasons for Oakland’s success is a market inefficiency that has become more known over the last few years but still lacks mainstream acceptance: Building a bullpen cheaply, without a star closer or several multimillion-dollar contracts.

While Reddick won a Gold Glove and hit 32 home runs as a right fielder, and the value of starting pitching is no secret, it was reliever Cook who was one of the biggest factors in the team’s success. Reddick posted a 4.8 WAR (Baseball-Reference.com) in 156 games while Cook had a 2.6 mark in 71 and made the All-Star team.

Cook again is a reason for Oakland’s success, as are bullpen mates Grant Balfour, Jerry Blevins, Sean Doolittle and Pat Neshek. Together, along with a handful of others who have made appearances, those guys have combined to give the bullpen a major league-best 4.15 cumulative clutch rating (CCR) – a stat that rates success in the highest leverage situations. The next highest team is Pittsburg at 3.25 and then no other club is higher than 2.85 (Rangers). It’s no coincidence the A’s have a 14-9 mark in one-run games through Tuesday.

Beane built this bullpen by handing out one big deal (Balfour makes $4.5 million), finding a little luck in his own system (Doolittle is a converted hitting prospect with less than two years pro pitching experience), through trades for Cook and Blevins (for Jason Kendall in 2007) and by finding a scrapheap guy in Neshek, who had a 4.01 ERA with the Padres in 2011 before the A’s purchased his contract from Baltimore last August.

Outside of Balfour, none makes more than $1.1 million.

“The thing with bullpens is you can build them cheaply,” Arizona Diamondbacks GM and renowned bullpen architect Kevin Towers said. “Even small-market teams can build great bullpens just because you don’t have to spend millions to find a guy to be good for an inning or two every other night.”

That frugalness extends to the rotation, with no Oakland starter making more than Bartolo Colon’s $3 million. Milone, Parker and A.J. Griffin all make less than $500,000.

The Orioles learned about cheap bullpen construction after the 2010 season and since then it has dealt relievers with decent contracts for guys like Mark Reynolds, Chris Davis and J.J. Hardy.

Reynolds played a big part in the team making the playoffs last year for the first time since 1997 and the other two are significantly contributing to this season’s run. The current bullpen, which is basically the same group that major league-leading 7.19 CCR last year and helped with a 29-9 record in one-run games, was not built as cheaply as Oakland’s but the Orioles’ payroll has more leash.

The difference between these teams is the A’s have good starters capable of limiting bullpen innings to keep arms fresh and effective. This also limits prolonged skids and the drastic fluctuations relievers typically go through when used a lot. Through Monday, the Oakland bullpen was third in AL ERA (2.87) and Baltimore was eighth (3.84) as signs of fatigue have been evident (currently third-most innings pitched this season and third-most last season). Oakland has thrown the fifth-most bullpen innings (216 1/3) but it threw the seventh-most last season.

RICH TEAMS, POOR CONSTRUCTION

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels are among the game’s wealthy, but both teams are well below .500 and World Series expectations have turned into just hoping to not fall back by double-digit games by the All-Star break.

A big part of the reason for both teams’ failures, including the Angels’ unfulfilled postseason expectations last year, is poorly built bullpens. Last season the Angels had a 3.97 bullpen ERA, ranking them 22nd out of 30 major league teams, so GM Jerry Dipoto set out to plug the holes.

He added Sean Burnett and Ryan Madson, but Burnett has made just 13 appearances and only two since April 26 while Madson has yet to pitch after undergoing Tommy John surgery last year.

The Angels’ bullpen has a 4.01 ERA, again ranking them 22nd while Burnett, Scott Downs, Kevin Jepsen and Madson make nearly $13 million combined.

The Dodgers have been worse with a 4.17 ERA (25th). The team leads the majors with 15 blown saves. Brandon League, Matt Guerrier, J.P. Howell and Ronald Belisario, almost all of whom have been disappointing this season (Howell’s 2.27 ERA is the exception) make a combined $13.55 million.

SURGING IN SAN DIEGO

The Padres rank 26th out of 30 teams in payroll, checking in at just over $68 million when the season started. But they are above.500 and in contention in the National League West. Over the last 365 days, the Padres are 88-76.

They are winning despite becoming quite familiar with the disabled list this season and playing the wait-and-see, day-to-day game with other ailing players, most recently outfielder Carlos Quinton.

Second baseman Jedd Gyorko is a rookie of the year candidate, first baseman Yonder Alonso is seen as middle-of-the-order bat and Cameron Maybin as a cornerstone center fielder. All of them are on the DL, as is All-Star caliber shortstop Everth Cabrera, forcing GM Josh Byrnes to dig deep into his depth to keep the small-market dream from fading.

“We have to have flexibility when we put our roster together, so many of our roster spots go to veterans coming off a down year maybe or guys who can play multiple positions,” Byrnes said. “So when we’ve had injuries, we’ve been able to plug guys in.

“Last year we led the majors in DL days and still played well the last few months. We learn to deal with that so we are not as much of a set-lineup team. We are thinking 30-35 guys in the organization because we can’t go out and just trade or sign someone to replace a hole.”

FLYING HIGH IN TORONTO

The Blue Jays, along with the Padres and Royals, are the other hottest team in baseball, riding a seven-game winning streak going into Wednesday and winning 10 of their previous 12. They are trying to buck the trend of high-payroll clubs floundering in the standings in the way the Miami Marlins, Angels, Dodgers and Boston Red Sox in recent seasons.

If the Jays can somehow find a way to keep traction for the rest of the season and make the playoffs, it could certainly shift, even slightly, the thinking about building rosters filled with All-Stars.

If they falter as other have recently, front offices with money to spend could seriously start to re-evaluate how they build a club as contract lengths become shorter and nine-figure deals become lower.